“I had noticed.”
“Actions mean more than words,” I said. “Please don’t do it again.”
“I won’t.”
We stood, silent again, and he cleared his throat.
“There’s a public autopsy tomorrow if you would like to watch it,” Charles said. “I’m sure Laurence won’t notice if we’re late to laboratory.”
“I would like that.” I gestured to the door. “Hacks don’t get much in the way of real anatomy training.”
* * *
The next morning, Charles met me at the infirmary with a box full of financiers speckled with tea leaves and blueberries. I hated sweets.
“Thank you,” I said, “but you didn’t have to.”
“I definitely shouldn’t have smacked you, but none of it was called for.” He pushed them into my hands. “Please take them.”
“Thank you,” I said again because I had no idea what to do. Of all the hours I had spent learning propriety, my mother hadn’t taught me how to handle this situation. “Would you like to pretend it never happened and go back to work?”
“Lord, yes.” Charles let out a long breath and held open the door to the infirmary for me. “I enjoy our competition.”
“Yes, I imagine you do.” I slipped past him and set the box on one of the tables Laurence had stolen to use for supplies. “It must be so freeing to finally be able to show off your knowledge to a hack a year behind you in education.”
“You’re right.” He smiled. “I should stop letting you answer the easy ones.”
I glanced at him, eyes narrowed, and his smile widened.
“Are you the cadaver for the autopsy?” I asked.
“No?”
“I’m not sure I’m interested anymore.”
He laughed and escorted me through the halls I never got to see in the section of the medical school solely meant for physicians- and surgeons-to-be, and we passed the rest of our time together in more comfortable quiet. The anatomy theater was small, and we sat in the back, out of sight of the other students. It was a more than bearable way to spend a morning.
When I got back to my room after work, a note was resting on my pillow.
4morn
I went alone. There had been no note on Madeline’s bed, and if she were caught, the trouble would be greater for her. I stopped by the infirmary to grab the box of financiers—and make sure the guards saw me heading into the infirmary but not out of it—before slipping deeper into the dark streets to Bloodletters. It was the only thing the note could have meant, and if not, I had pastries at least.
I rapped on the door once. The girl from before, one of the Laurels, appeared in the crack, her eyes narrowed. She yanked me inside, and on a table in the center of the bar rested a small person whose entire right arm was drenched in dried blood. Laurel shut the door behind me and gestured to the newcomer. I dropped my financiers on an empty table.
“What happened?” I asked, already gathering magic.
“Save your healing arts,” Laurel said, nervously fiddling with the locket around her neck. “This is another Laurel. They took a knife to the arm. You can stitch, right?”
“Of course.” I peeled back the newcomer’s sleeve, and they hissed. “How long ago was this?”
The newcomer winced. “Half a day? I was traveling for most of it.”
“The blood has stuck your shirt to the wound,” I said. “I’ll need water.”
I set to peeling the shirt away. The cut wasn’t too deep or damaging, but it took long enough that I was only halfway done when they started up their third conversation over my head. They spoke about soldiers and quartering, unease in Bosquet which made me nervous, and a few missing old hacks they couldn’t find. I used my healing arts, channeling it slowly into the nerves, despite Laurel’s warning; there was no need for this newcomer to deal with the pain. They didn’t seem to mind and muttered their thanks after the first few passes of the needle.
“Am I allowed to know your chosen name?” I cleaned out the bottom edge of the cut.
“Would you like to know a secret, hack?” my patient asked. “We’re all Laurel.”
“That’s very confusing.” I opened the satchel the newcomer had set before me and shifted through the supplies. “Have you ever had a bad reaction to pain syrups?”
“Yes!” They beckoned my Laurel over and held out their coat. “The normal ones make my heart race, but I have an alchemist who makes me some.”
Laurel searched through their coat until she found a small blue vial and handed it to me. I uncorked it, inhaled—amazingly concentrated—and handed it to the newcomer.
“That is very strong. Don’t take it until you’re ready to fall asleep or won’t need to walk in a straight line for a while.” I pointed to the financiers. “And take one of those.”
Laurel looked in the box and whistled. “You sure you want to give these away?”
“I don’t like sweet things.” I hadn’t wanted to tell Charles; it was a kind gesture. “And you definitely shouldn’t drink any of that without eating.”
“Yeah, she warned me,” said the newcomer.
I cleared my throat and paused cleaning up. “You said there was unease in Bosquet?”
“I did.” The newcomer looked me up and down, all the exhaustion leaving their face. “Why? That accent, you’re not from Bosquet.”
“No, but I have friends there.”
“People are uncomfortable with some of the comte’s new statements about Laurel.” Laurel grinned. “Something’s coming. We’ve got two people scrying for us, and Demeine’s army and its chevaliers are on the move to Segance.”
“The scryers gave me the whole guard schedule for Serre’s barracks,” said the newcomer. “I only nearly got caught because there was some sort of meeting tonight, and I wanted to see what it was about.”
“We mean to be ready when it happens, and Bosquet’s probably getting there a touch sooner because Chevalier du Ferrant’s being ornery.” Laurel put the box of pastries back in my empty arms and led me to the door. “We’re going to needs hacks to heal us. You all right doing that under Laurence du Montimer’s nose?”
“Yes.” Change was coming, something good, something worthwhile. It was the least I could do. “Of course.”
After that, Laurel called Madeline, Rainier, or me to heal her and her visiting Laurels often. I went more often than not, Madeline and I afraid of her being even the least bit conspicuous given what Physician du Guay had done to Florice. A few times I had noticed my Laurel with healed wounds or new scars, and I knew there had to be others at the university supporting Laurel. From the healing arts used, it was someone good—a powerful hack or physician’s apprentice. Rainier and I never discussed it during the day, too afraid of the others overhearing us. The rest of the university seemed as equally on edge as us; Laurel’s latest flyers had appeared without warning one day at noon.
LABORERS WORK SO THAT THEY NEED NOT
HACKS CHANNEL SO THAT THEY NEED NOT
SOLDIERS DIE SO THAT THEY NEED NOT
WE DON’T WANT TO FIGHT
BUT WE WILL
UNITE! ORGANIZE! DEMAND!
“He has no idea who puts these up,” Madeline whispered to me as we got ready one morning. “I already told our Laurel, but he’s demanded one of his older hacks join Laurel to find out who’s behind it. The hack’s about as obvious as a cat in a rat’s nest.”
“Good.” I was growing tired of Physician du Guay’s public shaming when no hack could provide him information on Laurel. “Let him worry over that for a while.”
“What about you?” Madeline asked.
“Nothing as interesting,” I said, using the phrase we had started understanding to mean I didn’t help Laurel last night. “Charles and I are trying to isolate the bodily alchemistry that causes fever responses. It’
s going nowhere, but Laurence says that impossible tasks build character and make us think creatively. I would rather build a wall between my table and Charles’s.”
“Play nicely,” Madeline said as we rounded the corner where we would part. “It’s not as if you have to drink the ocean. You only have to work with him.”
I sighed and shrugged. “I suppose.”
Drinking the ocean might have been an easier task.
“Late night?” Charles asked, mouth twitching at my poorly concealed yawn.
I hadn’t even been in the laboratory for one minute.
I rubbed my face. “Rewarding night.”
If boys were allowed to be disheveled and tired-eyed, I wasn’t going to worry. I had, at least, washed the grit of too little sleep from my eyes. I had used the healing arts with Laurel the night before last—she had returned with an arrow in her stomach—and my arm was still a little worn down where I had pressed it to her while channeling. The larger the surface area, the more magic I could get into her at once. She was lucky the arrow had hit no organs.
“Actually,” I said, pausing by his table instead of continuing to my own. “I have a question, but I am going to say a statement before the question that sounds harsher than I mean it.”
Charles turned and leaned against the table, the glass of his distillation setup jingling. “I love it when people have to add caveats before they even start talking.”
“I already regret speaking to you. However,” I said, ignoring his laughter, “I do not normally enjoy sweet things. Those financiers seem to be the exception, and I am curious as to where you got them?”
“Really?” Charles asked. “I thought opposites attracted?”
I tried to raise one eyebrow like my mother always did when annoyed. “Couldn’t think of a better insult?”
“Give it time. I’m sure you’ll do something ridiculous soon enough.”
“Fine. Don’t reveal your secret pâtissier. I will find them on my own.” I waved him back to his table and set to rolling up my sleeves.
Charles followed me. “So you’re not a sweet person?”
“No, I hate the aftertaste,” I said, “and much like plants, my bitterness is a warning to leave me be.”
“Fair. I shan’t eat you, then.” He grinned, but it lacked his usual crook of sarcasm. “Chef Vin, thankfully, is completely susceptible to bribery. They’re saving up for their wedding. They work in Delest.”
“Do they?” I said, drawing out the words. Oh, that was dangerous these days. “Do you think I’ll die if I only eat pastries from now on?”
“No, you should definitely do that.” He gently touched my arm, pulling away before I could even react. “Wrap this. Worn-out skin is weak and numb, and this is why most hacks die of blood loss. They don’t even notice they’re bleeding.”
I glanced at the raw skin on my arm from healing Laurel. A few syrupy beads of blood oozed from the wound. “Damn. Thank you.”
He walked back to his table, tossed me a bandage from the kit beneath Laurence’s workbench, and went back to his business. I had only just finished wrapping my arm when the door to the laboratory slammed open. Rainier and Sébastien shuffled inside, Laurence looming behind them.
“Good. You’re both here.” Laurence locked the door behind him. “All of you have a seat.”
We did. Silently.
I glanced at Rainier, and he shrugged.
It had to be bad. Laurence’s coat was unbuttoned and flaring around his knees, and he twisted and untwisted the loose strands of his long hair as he paced before us. He normally put thought into his clean-lined appearance, and it wasn’t the flighty, finicky, flashy look that most men at university spent hours perfecting and fussing up. Sébastien behaved as if he were the ideal, though—intelligent, wanton, a creative genius too busy to pick out his clothes or wash his hair. To be fair, he was a remarkable artist, but I could tell the ink stains on his sleeves had been made for show.
Laurence never so much as had a wrinkled shirt sleeve until today, and I was certain the ink stains were unintentional.
“Demeine, as of several days ago, has decided to attack Kalthorne and declare war,” Laurence said through clenched teeth. “Ostensibly, it is to remove Thornish forces from our border in Segance and retaliate for their role in the small uprising that occurred there this summer.”
“Ostensibly?” Charles and I asked at the same time.
Demeine was separated from Kalthorne and the rest of the continent by the Pinch, a sliver of water too wide and deep to bridge but narrow enough to see across, and Segance was a crescent-shaped strip of land on our eastern shores. Its northern tip had connected us to the continent at one point, but over time had been worn away by water. Now it was a line of small islands and watery settlements. A nebulous border with a dozen or so Thornish towns technically living on Demeine land.
“My sentiments exactly,” Laurence said. “This will force a good number of people away from home, and while war generally does good things for the economy, that is because it does bad things for mortal life.”
It would distract people from the problems of Demeine and give them a common enemy that wasn’t His Majesty. It would move people across the country, breaking up established communication systems. Once a soldier, always a soldier; it was a crime to desert, so anyone who had been in the army and part of Laurel would not only be in danger but unable to help Laurel anymore. It was one huge, murderous distraction.
His Majesty would get us all killed, simply to protect his rule and squash a possible revolt. If most of Laurel died in the war, His Majesty couldn’t lose—war hero, brief economic boon, and his adversaries would be dead.
If Kalthorne didn’t crush us.
“People are going to die,” Rainier said, voice unsteady.
Charles shifted. “It’s subtler than a massacre.”
“Shush.” Laurence shot him a quelling look. “I must apologize to all of you. I did not think it would come to this, but since I already officially employed you all, we must answer the call.”
There would be people from Marais fighting, people I probably knew. If they had a chance of dying, it was only right I took the same chance.
“When do we leave?” Sébastien asked, his voice wavering. “They’ll evacuate Kalthorne civilians, right?”
“I don’t know, and we leave in the morning.” Laurence folded his lean body onto a stool and slumped over the table. “Take tonight to write home, pack, and do whatever you feel the need to. While we travel, I will teach you how to survive and channel during a fight. It will be our jobs to not only heal the wounded after fights, but keep the chevaliers alive during them. And Emilie, I am sorry. There are not many other women in the first groups being sent to the border, so you will have to make do with us for company, but I will make sure you feel comfortable. We will discuss it tomorrow.” He waved for us to leave. “Go. Get your lives in order.”
Rainier and I ran to the room I shared with Madeline. She was already there, pacing between the beds. Rainier practically tackled her. I let them mutter to each other and began packing my scant belongings. Physician du Guay wasn’t part of the initial group being sent, and Madeline would not be there with us. She wished me goodbye.
I told them I had to take care of something in the laboratory, so they could say their goodbyes alone.
Laurence was in his little office. I pattered about the laboratory, not doing much of anything. I could write to my mother, but what would I say?
Oh, remember that thing you hate? Well, I did it, and now I might die.
That would go beautifully.
Instead, I wrote a letter to Annette asking her to scry for me if she could. Segance was days away, and she might not be able to see that far. She would likely be commandeered by the court to scry anyway.
If you have the time and health to do so, I wou
ld feel much safer knowing you are scrying and divining me, given the fact that such advantages are usually only for chevaliers. I’m not quite sure what will happen if I fall, but please feel free to take as much money as you can and run for it if it comes to that. If nothing else, it would give me a good laugh from beyond the grave.
What else was there to say?
The door creaked open. I folded the note into a thin strip and turned to see who it was. Charles saw me and sighed. I set the note aside.
“I need to talk to you,” Charles said softly. “It’s about something important.”
I nodded. He had a little, unusual furrow between his brows. “Are you sick?”
“What?” He shook his head. “This is nerve-racking.”
“Do you want to talk over tea?” I gestured to the kettle in the corner of the laboratory where Rainier had taken to making tea whenever Laurence wasn’t looking. “My mother says it makes talking easier.”
It mostly gave me something to do with my hands. I never knew what to do with my hands.
He laughed, not happily, and shook his head. “Thank you, but no.”
“Is it about our competition?” I pulled out the stool next to me. “I know we don’t get along and all, but I do enjoy it and since we are about to wander into a war, I want to make that clear. I do trust you as a physician and person. Probably more as a physician, but what makes you such a good one is your remarkable dedication to others. If you think us working together in a serious situation will be an issue, I assure you, it won’t.”
“That’s actually why I’m doing this now.” He sat and set both elbows on the table, his fingers laced beneath his chin. “I do trust you, even if you are the most insufferable person I have ever met.”
“It’s mutual,” I said. “And only insufferable? Please, that’s what everyone says—insufferable and stubborn. You can do better than that.”
He laughed softly, but his body tensed. “When I was born, the physician and my parents assumed I was female. I am not. I have always been more dawn than dusk.”
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